First Grade artists have been exploring the abstract work of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. They learned that Picasso worked in a style called Cubism. After looking at lots of cubist art pieces, our smart first graders decided that cubism is when an artist uses lots of shapes and shows details from different views in the same picture – like their practice drawings here:

Next they discovered that when Picasso was sad, he used lots of blue paint during his “Blue Period”. Picasso’s work changed when he became happier and he used more oranges and pinks during his “Rose Period”.

They chose their own blue or rose color period to create their Picasso portrait collages. See more of our awesome Picassos at our Artsonia on-line gallery!

Learning Goals:

I can tell two facts about Pablo Picasso; I can explain cubism; I can create a portrait in the cubist style of Pablo Picasso

Third grade artists have been reviewing their curriculum in a fun way…the Big Shoe Review! After drawing a giant tennis shoe, they illustrated the shoe with images and information about one of their favorite artists. We learn about many artists throughout the school year, and we focus on three artists at each grade level every year. This year, third graders learned in depth about “Action Jackson” Pollock, Leonardo DaVinci, and the creator of Blue Dog, Louisiana artist George Rodrigue. I was impressed that they were also able to recall some of their second and first grade focus artists as well – Henri Matisse, Vincent VanGogh, and Pablo Picasso.

After showing everyone how to draw their giant shoe, I hung posters of our artists on the board and set out many art books for them to peruse. Check out some of the cool shoes!

Georgetown’s second grade artists finished up this final project before Christmas break. My smart second graders impressed me by recalling concepts that we learned as first graders – warm and cool colors, cubism, and even the famous artist, Pablo Picasso. And since they were learning how to use rulers in their classroom, second graders had some good tips to share about holding their rulers down as they drew their lines to divide up their Picasso Trees.

First Grade artists have been learning about Pablo Picasso and cubism. We found many shapes and colors in Picasso’s “Three Musicians” painting – and everyone enjoyed finding the dog hidden with the musicians!

Three Musicans by Pablo Picasso

We created our own versions of the Three Musicians, adding texture to our background and lots of colorful shapes.

First graders have been learning about Pablo Picasso and cubism this week. They’ve had great fun talking about Picasso’s portraits that show many views of the face at the same time.

We created our own Picasso portraits, and included a review of warm, cool, and neutral colors as we painted our portraits.

The final step was to go over all of our lines with black oil pastel so our shapes would pop out. This turned out to be the most difficult step – those lines kept hiding, and Mrs. Brouwer kept sending everyone back to find one more line!